This is Part 2 of a 7-part series on ‘Hole In Your Sole’:
- Part 1 – Dustbin of the Mind (Article & Meditation)
- Part 2 – [You are here] Healing Your Drama Triangle (Article & Meditation)
- Part 3 – The Confidence to Feel Your Feelings (Article & Meditation)
- Part 4 – How The Sensitive Personality Types Let Go (Article & Meditation)
- Part 5 – What Do Other People Think? (Article & Meditation)
- Part 6 – The Power of Observe (Article & Meditation)
- Part 7 – Healing The Inner Child (Article & Meditation)
WE HAVE ALL AT ONE POINT in our lives been involved in drama. For some, it can become a way of life even. If it has been our experience since our early years, then it seems normal to continue the pattern once we reach adulthood.
For the Intuitive-Sensitive Person, there is a time when we seek to heal our own dramas. We no longer find it acceptable to allow our lives to feel compromised. We find we want to raise our standards. This is often shown with the drive to help others heal, and to be of service to those who would like help and support through life’s challenges. This is the driving energy of an Intuitive-Sensitive Person. We like to find our feet, heal our own past, and help others create their future. For some it is the desire to work within the healing field, to live a peaceful life, and for others it is simply to be effective in terms of support for friends and family.
At this stage of our development we look to release our own addictive energy. This is experienced through a strong desire to clean up our own lives and find an effective and lasting way of healing our relationship with ourselves and all areas of life – food, health, wealth and especially our ability to look after the self.
We start to crave more freedom and choices.
Drama comes in all shapes and sizes. When I met Rosemary she had experienced quite a few dramas in her life. A quiet unassuming person, one of her dramas included her now ex-husband. Since they had married his attention was elsewhere. His focus was hugely on work and not really on his home life. Rosemary’s life experience had taught her men are ‘strong but silent’ types and that’s just the way it is. She made the best of her marriage and brought two children into the world.
Rosemary would suppress any emotion she was feeling, in order not to upset her husband. His short answer, for most things, was that he was doing his best for the family and she should stop nagging him. Rosemary witnessed her husband grow more and more fond of alcohol until he was an alcoholic.
Embarrassed by her husband’s behaviour Rosemary did everything she could to protect him. “Your father has had a bad day at work” was the excuse often used to explain his behaviour to her two sons. The relationship with her husband eventually deteriorated into physical violence and then divorce.
However, Rosemary’s (addiction to) drama didn’t stop with the divorce. Her two sons began to favour her ex-husband and began to ‘punish’ her for the divorce. Her elderly mother had become quite frail and Rosemary focused on her mother until she found solace in a new relationship with a charming, protective man. After six months he transformed into a secretive, emotionally violent individual. By the time I met Rosemary she felt crushed by her experiences.
The Karpman Drama Triangle
To heal our dramas, it is helpful to see them from the outside. The Karpman drama triangle is a psychological tool to understand how we participate in life-long dramas. Once understood in the psyche, we have the power within to adjust and change this pattern.
The triangle represents three different energies: the victim, the persecutor, and the rescuer. We choose how we engage; one person can take on any energy in the triangle at any point within a relationship.
In Rosemary’s case she took on the victim energy. The victim feels powerless to change and a deep sense of hopelessness. They can’t make any decisions to change the circumstances, and feel ashamed. This is the ‘poor me’ vibration. Her husband was the persecutor and by projecting ‘it’s all your fault’ on to her, oppressed ‘the victim’ through criticism, blame and addiction. And Rosemary’s two sons thus became the rescuers. This is the ‘let me help you even when not asked’ energy. Rosemary’s two sons had, during the marriage, felt responsible for the unhappiness of their mother.
When Rosemary pursued divorce the roles changed. Her husband became the victim, her sons the persecutor and she the rescuer. Her husband had switched to the ‘poor me’ energy. Her sons then adopted the stance of ‘look what you’ve done to dad’ (persecutor) and, in the meantime, Rosemary turned to ‘rescue’ her elderly mother until she could enter another drama triangle in order to learn the lesson. And learn she did, with a new partner. This new partner entered as ‘the rescuer’; her ‘Knight in shining armour’. This gave Rosemary what she subconsciously wanted: to move back into the victim role so that she could convince herself and others ‘nobody loves me, however much I try to help’.
This of course, is not the truth. It is an illusion, which is why the Karpman triangle is such a useful tool.
It helps us see a drama situation for what it is and this insight enables us to make the choices we need to make in order to collapse the triangle. And that is how you beat the drama game.
It only took six months for Rosemary’s new partner to turn persecutor on her. He had in fact always been the persecutor, but caught her at the right time to be able to pose as the hero to the damsel in distress. This is often the case with controlling relationships; they start at a time when we’re most vulnerable.
How to release yourself
The key to releasing yourself from the repeating pattern of drama is to build your inner world and building your light. Building your inner world creates stability within, and immediately releases you fro
m the restraints of the victim energy.
When I met Rosemary one of her sons was leaving the country as he was emigrating to America with his new partner. Rosemary had come to me asking how she could heal the hurt she was feeling. Her son had centred all the celebrations around her ex-husband, and she wasn’t invited. She wanted to give her son a piece of her mind and asked me how she should do that most effectively.
I very simply helped her to step out of the drama triangle rather than participate. This didn’t mean running away, it meant empowering herself. I told her to buy a very nice card and write some kind words to her son. I told her to write inside how proud she was and that she hoped he had a wonderful start to his new life. I told her to post it and release without expectation; accept the ‘real’ Rosemary in the words and let it go.
Rosemary had the courage to do just that. She released without expectation, let go of her victim, didn’t become the persecutor. She took courage and stepped out of the triangle and posted the card. When we move out of a drama triangle the energy has room to adjust. We release the animosity stored deep in the psyche into a neutral space. From here, we’re able to see clearly and make our own steps forward free of judgments and fear.
The next morning after Rosemary had posted the card she opened the front door to find her son standing on her doorstep sobbing his heart out. He had realised how much his mum must have been feeling and he deeply felt the love she had for him. He said “I’m very sorry mum, can we start again…”
You are now ready for the meditation:
Removing the Victim